1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to panoramic photograph technology using a mobile camera phone or a portable digital camera and, more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for taking a panoramic photograph at a suitable lens rotation angle derived from an angular velocity acquired by a sensor such as a gyroscope.
2. Description of the Related Art
Panoramic photography is a style of photography that aims to create images with exceptionally wide fields of view. Modern digital camera technology allows for the continuous capturing of multiple images around 360 degrees to create a single wide image.
The principle of panoramic photography is to stitch together widthwise or lengthwise multiple photographs, each of which forms a segment of the panorama. Each photograph is obtained by rotation of a camera at regular angles, partially overlapping the adjacent photograph. Then these photographs automatically combine into a single panoramic photograph through a proper program in a personal computer. A significant point of the panoramic photography is to align overlapping images so as to exactly combine them.
FIG. 1 illustrates a general concept of panoramic photography. As shown in FIG. 1, to create a desired panoramic photograph 10, a camera 11 captures a certain image segment 12 of the panoramic photograph 10 and then rotates to capture a next image segment 13. Here, two adjacent image segments 12 and 13 should partially overlap each other at a peripheral portion 14. If such a process is performed manually, the rotation of the camera 11 may be uneven and swinging. Furthermore, this may not only fail to align the overlapped portions 14 of the adjacent image segments 12 and 13, but also cause a blurred image due to hand trembling of a user.
A tripod for supporting the camera 11 may be effective in solving the above-discussed problem. The tripod may, however, be inconvenient and burdensome for a user to carry. Especially, a mobile terminal such as mobile camera phone requires another solution since such a terminal cannot use the tripod.